The first half abouts of the 10-part docuseries “The Last Dance” featuring the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls team didn’t sit well with Ken Burns.
At this point, we are more than halfway through the highly anticipated and entertaining 10-part ESPN/ABC/Netflix documentary series highlighting all-time great shooting guard Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls title team “The Last Dance”. Parts five and six released last weekend, and two more nights of premieres remaining starting this coming weekend.
Given that the sports world is effectively put on a hiatus due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, a docuseries getting released right now like The Last Dance helped to take some of the attention away from the lack of live games. Most basketball fans that follow this attentively give this docuseries pretty good reviews.
But there will always be a critic, and last week it turned out to be the famous documentarian Ken Burns. In an interview he did last week with the Wall Street Journal, Burns mentioned the overall lack of journalistic integrity that he felt The Last Dance was produced with, largely due to MJ’s control over the plot lines.
He summed up his feelings by stating that “I find it the opposite direction of where we need to be going”. Here’s what else he had to say on the matter.
"“If you are there influencing the very fact of it getting made, it means that certain aspects that you don’t necessarily want in aren’t going to be in, period,” says Burns, saying he himself would “never, never, never, never” allow such a partnership on one of his films. Added the documentarian, “And that’s not the way you do good journalism … and it’s certainly not the way you do good history, my business.”"
It seems like his feelings toward the docuseries are impacted by the Jordan colored glasses that the story is told through. When it boils down to it, his perspective does make sense compared to how he’s produced his documentary series, most notably about the history of baseball and the Civil War. He came from an outsider’s perspective and got numerous different interviews on those subjects.
However, this is a docuseries that mainly features MJ, and it likely should be told as such. Viewers should understand that MJ’s biases are going to play a major factor in the tone of the entire docuseries. But The Last Dance also has interviews with a ton of other big time NBA legends, celebrities, and former Jordan teammates, among others.
We should understand both sides of where Burns and the storylines of The Last Dance are coming from. MJ is going to tell his perspective on the story, and that’s what basketball fans should anticipate when watching the docuseries.
Parts seven and eight of The Last Dance will air on ESPN and ABC this coming weekend, on May 10 at 8 p.m. CT. The next focus of the docuseries will largely be highlighting the first retirement of Jordan’s playing days, along with the beginning of the 1998 playoff run for the Bulls.